Lalley: Too cold for outdoors? Hey, this isn’t Iowa

You’re sitting around watching football games between college teams you’ve either never heard of or have never met a graduate of.

There’s nothing but crusty bean dip, a red Jello and banana salad and off-brand Oktoberfest beers in the refrigerator.

The long, dark months of winter stretch before you like a list of Pat O’Brien’s celebrity name drops.

The glitter is gone, and you’re left with nothing but gastrointestinal difficulty and the prospect of three months of running from car to work, car to bar/mall, car to house. Repeat.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Winter in the Best Little City in America is just getting started. When you think about it like that, it’s a depressing commentary on our way of life that surely will drive us all to live in double-wides in the Arizona desert.

Well, I’m not going anywhere, and the odds are pretty good that neither are you.

So the only good option is to fight back.

You’re a South Dakotan, after all. Get outside, man. It’s in your genes.

I can’t stand the thought of another three months shuttered and stifled by my house and office and car.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate the comforts that modern technology offers. I do, I really do.

But we aren’t bears. As much as some of us would like to believe otherwise, South Dakotans don’t hibernate. If I sit on my butt all winter watching European cyclocross videos on YouTube, I’ll end up a depressed tub of goo.

That wouldn’t be good for anybody.

So today, I’m going outside.

The forecast from the National Weather Service says it’s going to be right around 2 degrees, give or take. There probably will be another inch of fresh snow on the ground to go with the dusting we’ve received in the past few days.

On the up side, the winds will be light.

I’m going for a bike ride.

The 27th edition of the Spoke-n-Sport New Year’s Day ride will begin at 1 p.m. from the bike shop at 2019 S. Minnesota Ave. (NOTE: This year’s edition also benefits the Center of Hope, a Sioux Falls nonprofit that puts bikes in the hands of low-income folks, so make a donation.)

Yes, it will be chilly. Dress appropriately.

The fact is, you can recreate in the cold.

I blame a couple generations of television weather people for freaking everybody out about the cold. It is true that if you get caught in the country in a blizzard and get out of your car to try to walk to town, you might die.

But there’s not going to be a blizzard today.

And we actually live in town.

Science provides us with all manner of tools to survive, and even thrive, when the temps dip into the single digits and below.